Pork producers received fantastic news that the United States and Japan will begin trade talks soon. Japan is the U.S. pork industry’s No. 1 value market, importing in 2017 more than $1.6 billion of U.S. pork.

The U.S. needs to make moving toward a trade pact with Japan an “extraordinary” priority. That’s according to Gregg Doud, the chief agricultural negotiator for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Japan might increase the amount of agriculture trade conducted with the U.S. through potential trade deal that was announced by President Trump following a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

It is extremely important for rapid progress to be made in these negotiations if U.S. beef and pork are to remain competitive in the largest value destination for U.S. red meat, says Dan Halstrom, U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) president and CEO.

Talks on renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) continued for the third straight week last week, as representatives from the U.S., Canada and Mexico pushed to finalize an updated deal.

As classical swine fever (CSF) infections continue to spread to more areas in Japan, the country is debating whether or not to vaccinate farm pigs in affected prefectures against the infectious disease.